FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Aug. 29, 2018 (EIRNS)— Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia was calm but unmoved in response to the outburst of U.K. Ambassador Karen Pierce, who had issued her denial of British involvement in staging a chemical weapons provocation in Syria, speaking to the press before she went into the UN Security Council session on Syria. Nebenzia said,

“The Russian Defense Ministry does not have a habit of making fake and ridiculous statements like defense ministries in other countries probably do. If the Russian Defense Ministry says something, it means it knows something.”

He stressed this as confirming that “another chemical weapons provocation is being planned in Syria,” reported TASS.

“According to reliable information, two large-capacity trucks have arrived in the Saraqib city area, accompanied by eight White Helmets members,” Nebenzia said. He said further that the White Helmets had delivered a large amount of chemical agents to a warehouse in Saraqib, while some of those chemicals had been taken to a militant depot in southern Idlib. Saraqib is in central Idlib province, about 60 km north of Kafr Zita, the town that the Russian Defense Ministry identified earlier this week as the planned location of the chemical weapons false flag attack.

“The Syrian armed forces do not have chemical weapons and have no plans to use them. There is no military need for that. We have stated that more than once. People in their right minds will not use means that are useless from a military point of view in order to trigger reprisals by three major powers,”

he said.

Afterwards, he told reporters that Russia considers warnings by “our Western partners” of possible use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces

“as an invitation to the armed rebel groups to stage another chemical provocation as they did in Douma earlier in April or in Khan Sheikhoun, to have a pretext for military strikes against Syria. We see these preparations, we see a military build-up, and we strongly warned against it.”

Furthermore, the use of chemical weapons as the U.S. and its partners are alleging makes no sense. “Why would they be inviting a military strike upon themselves by an alleged chemical attack?” Nebenzia asked. “Besides, from the battlefield point of view these chemical attacks have no military significance at all.”

When asked what Russia would do should

there be a U.S.-U.K.-French attack on Syria, Nebenzia replied: “First of all, we don’t want to hear or to know about any possible Western attack on Syria. It is a priori illegitimate. There is no Security Council decision on that, and they will never have one. And it will definitely affect the political process in the country. We hope that we don’t even discuss it, that this won’t happen.”